Manohar Pawar, BA, MASW and PhD, is Professor of Social Work at the School of Social Work and Arts, Charles Sturt University (New South Wales, Australia). He has made distinguished contributions to the field of international social work and social development. His books are translated in Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Khmer, and Korean languages and used for social work education, research and practice internationally.  

To advance social science research and publications on community and social development, Prof. Pawar conceptualised and established a new peer reviewed journal entitled the International Journal of Community and Social development, published by SAGE. As its founding Editor-in-chief, he has enhanced the academic quality and status of the journal from nonindexed to Scopus indexed, achieving a SCImago ranked Q1 status for the journal in a short period.

In addition, he is President of the International Consortium for Social Development and Editor of Springer Series in Social Development. He has received several honours and awards, including an ARC (Australian Research Council) Discovery grant; Lifetime Achievement Award, 2017, conferred by the National Association of Professional Social Workers in India; the invitation to deliver the Council on Social Work Education 2017 Hokenstad International Lecture, USA; the Australian Learning and Teaching Council’s Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning, 2008; and Quality of Life Award 2001 from the Association of Commonwealth Universities.  

Prof. Pawar is on the editorial boards of International Social Work, the Indian Journal of Social Work, South Asian Journal of Participative Development, and Journal of Social Development Studies. He also reviews articles for many journals, including the British Journal of Social Work.

Prof.  Pawar's research follows a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative research methods, including integrating teaching and practice. He has nearly 200 publications, which include over 20 books and monographs, published by leading international publishers (Cambridge University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, SAGE, Springer). His research has focused on international social work, social development and social policy, social work and social policy practice, social consequences of climate change and water, social work education, informal care and ageing, NGOs and community development, and virtues and social work practice.

Prof. Pawar has been an invited keynote/panel speaker at many international professional conferences/seminars/workshops organised by universities/academic institutions/professional bodies in Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Kenya, Nepal, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and US.